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[Pages:17]WHY DO STORIES MATTER?

Student Gallery Walk Stories

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1. Angelique: "I want to be a lawyer because I hate when people go to jail for things they never did without a fair trial."

2. Amanda: "I remember lying in bed, not being able to breathe." 3. Chevarie: "When I think back to how I have overcome a lot of negative things

and people, it makes me have a sense of warmth and accomplishment." 4. Jania: "You could see how scared I was on my face." 5. Juan: "When she smiles, I don't know how to explain it, but it's really truthful

to me." 6. Jurule: "When I looked to check if I was hit, I saw blood pouring out of my

arm." 7. Justin: "I wasn't hindered because I didn't have both of my parent figures." 8. Kaylynn: "Having an IEP was kind of sad for me only because people looked at

me different and most judged before they got to even know me." 9. Paloma: "It reminds me that I'm my own person and I can be independent." 10. Roberto: "I'm asking myself, `Wow, am I really going to be a big brother? Wait,

so that means I'm going to become a role model.'" 11. Trey: "My whole drive of living in this world has been geared towards being a

better role model for other males in my society." 12. Wendy: "I'm very thankful for the sacrifice that my parents made by leaving

me behind and working hard to bring me."

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Student Gallery Walk Stories

ANGELIQUE | NEW YORK CITY

"I want to be a lawyer because I hate when people go to jail for things they never did without a fair trial."

"Have you seen your uncle in this household in the past three weeks?" was what the police officer asked me on that early Tuesday morning. I was just 14 years old when that police officer from Allentown, Pennsylvania came to my family's home to question about my uncle. My uncle was accused of killing a guy the day of a shooting in Allentown, Pennsylvania. They accused him right away because he was involved in the situation. He has been in jail for over a year now, still waiting for his trial. That really makes me upset because he didn't even do it at all.

He had a huge impact on my life because he was always there for me. Every single time I needed help, every time I needed advice, he was there for me. The laughs that we had and the joyful things that we had every time we had a family gathering, he would always be there. Now he can't be there anymore and it impacted my whole family because we all love him. He is a really important part of my life.

The police officers came to my house, my uncle's house, and everybody in my family who lives in New York. They asked us a lot of questions. The funny thing is they knew the computer of my sister without even seeing it--the color, the company, everything. That is shocking because how is that even possible when they had never seen it before. That made me realize they could be investigating you at any time any day any time of your life. When you least expect it they could be looking in your computer your phone anything.

[My uncle] ran for the past three months after the shootout and the person who was least expected ratted him out which was wife. He was in DR - Dominican Republic, for like a week and she ratted him out and they found him and they took him to jail. They cut his everything. He had long hair and now he has short, short hair. I remember seeing my grandma's face--his mother. Her face that day when they investigated us, she was crying and sobbing. They thought she was lying when she wasn't. She knows if you lie to a police office you will have really bad consequences, so she never lied at all. Every year on her birthday she feels that she can't even breathe because he is not with her.

This is one of the big reasoning why I want to be a lawyer because I hate when people go to jail for things they never did without a fair trial. That really shocks me. Like those assaults the police officers have been doing these days with Eric Gardener, Michael Brown, and Rodney King. I think they all deserve to go to jail.

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AMANDA | METHUEN, MASSACHUSETTS

"I remember lying in bed, not being able to breathe."

Hi, my name is Amanda and today I wanted to talk about my past events with anxiety and how it affects me pretty much every day. It's really hard to talk about and whatnot because of stuff, and yeah. So I wrote maybe two pages of stuff just so I can be able to say it because otherwise I wouldn't be able to.

So the first time I ever remember getting a panic attack was when I broke up with this one guy and then three days later he got with my best friend. I know it seems really, really silly, but I just remember laying in bed, not being able to breathe, crying, just like shaking, and not being able to fall asleep; it was a really long night.

And that's how it feels. You just can't breathe, your heart starts to race, and all you want to do is lay down and cry. But sometimes my vision gets blurry and whatnot, and spotty. It's really bad because sometimes I'll get it in class. I'll get it in the bus, I'll get it at home, I'll get it in the locker room, I'll get it anywhere and anytime. And how it works is like you can have a five to twenty-five minute period of it. You could also get it all day by just having a really high attack for five minutes, going down really low to no anxiety for half an hour, then going back up; it's terrible. It's worse when I get it in class because all I can do is just sit there and let it pass and hope that no one notices because you can't really escape the feeling of that, especially while all your peers are around.

It gets really scary because I don't want anybody else to see that part of me, I guess. I don't tell anyone. When I told my mom about it, it was maybe a month or two ago. The only thing that I found that will get rid of it would be ice hockey but that also makes it worse at the same time due to long-term effects. Because in ice hockey, you are taught to be physically and mentally tough. You are always taught to get back up when you fall down. Because of that, I don't really like talking to anybody about it. I feel that it makes me look weak, like crying and just wanting to get away from everybody. It all makes me sick. I just really hate that because I play boys' hockey. You got to be tough; especially for a girl. You got to be wicked tough.

These attacks affect my school and social life. I will get one in class and do badly that day because, like I said, once you get one, it could stop that day or it could go up and down all day, so I may have a twenty minute resting period but then go back to really high anxiety levels or I just stop and that's the only one for that day. I can't go out with my friends anymore because I'm afraid that I might get one. We might be at the mall and I might get one. I might not be able to control it as I could in class.

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I really have no clue what sets me off, so it's really hard to stay away from things that might set me off. I remember in Spanish class last year, people would not shut up and my teacher didn't do anything. She was a terrible teacher and she would just not do her job. So I became really nervous and I just had to leave the room. That's the first time I ever left class like that. Otherwise, I'll just sit there. I'll just let it pass, not tell anybody about it. I'll sit there shaking my leg, I don't know what to do. My mom suggested going to the doctors and getting medicine for it, but I know that's not going to help me. It's going to get rid of the pain but not actually fix it, especially during presentations at my school. It's the worst. Getting up in front of everybody and talking. All my classmates that are recording today, they can tell you when I did a presentation a week or two ago, my face got so red. I started shaking. I couldn't speak. It's honestly terrible, and you can't even do the things you love anymore. The only thing that I really do nowadays is hockey because that's the only thing that helps, but also makes it worse. I stopped doing other things that make me happy like going out. I stopped reading, I think, yeah, because I was afraid that people would judge me and say, "Ugh, she's reading a book. No one likes her," stuff like that. I think that is it. So thank you for listening.

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CHEVARIE | CHICAGO, ILLINOIS

"When I think back to how I have overcome a lot of negative things and people, it makes me have a sense of warmth and accomplishment."

Hi my name is Chevarie and one of the assets I would say I posses is resilience. I possess resilience because I have been through a lot of stressful events in my life. When I think back to how I have overcome a lot of negative things and people, it makes me have a sense of warmth and accomplishment. But there is a lot of darkness and skeletons in my closet.

I started getting bullied in the sixth grade, but I believe I was bullied way before the sixth grade. I don't really remember because I was younger and I didn't really pay attention to what was said about me and what other people thought about me. I was mainly bullied because I looked different than the other kids and because I used to always wear my hair in ponytails.

I didn't know how to cope with my emotions on top of all that; I had so much stuff going on at home. I wanted to die and kill myself. No one understood my pain or tried to. I had got into it with a lot of the kids in my class and my family. Before I knew, it I ended up at a mental hospital by the name of Hargrove to learn how to maintain my pain and control my stress and anger problems.

The years 2012 through 2013 would have to be the worst years of my life because of all of the pain I had to endure. My favorite place to go [at Hargrove] was in the day room because I had a chance to talk to everyone and get to know them and see the type of person that they were. Girls and counselors would help us with our issues or problems from the past and things we have problems with now.

I stayed there for two weeks learning how to cope with my anger problems and stress. By the time I left Hargrove I had an inner-peace with myself and I knew I was okay. I knew that no matter what I went through that I would be okay. Nowadays I go through things but I know that I'll be fine so I don't stress. Life is too short to let one thing that you go through predict your whole future. Resilience is something I believe we all possess but you have to find the strength within yourself to have it, own it, and get it.

If I could change one thing after Hargrove it would be to take away all the pain, exhaustion, and stress. Nobody deserves to be put through pain and stress. In life we have to go through things that will shape us into who we are so that we can be who we are destined to be. I feel as if some of the girls' struggles and triumphs--their destiny is waiting for the day that the tears and pain will be taken away from them.

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I was only at Hargrove for two weeks, but there isn't a day that goes by that I don't wish I could go there again, especially when I feel like no one understands me. I don't know how everyone feels about Hargrove, but I would hope the feeling is mutual. I believe that the place is still the same. I'm going to visit one day. My favorite object is the food because we had a choice of what we wanted to eat and drink and there was dessert. Hargrove Mental Hospital is located on the west side of Chicago.

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JANIA | CHICAGO, IL "You could see how scared I was on my face." My first day of high school, I was so nervous that I almost cried. I remember it like it was yesterday. I had woken up at 4:30 for some reason and I just couldn't go back to sleep. All I could think about was all the kids and which classes I'll be stuck in. I didn't think that I was really ready to be on my own like that because I was so used to be around the same kids in the same class with the same teacher. Me and my mom left the house around 7:00 and as we were in the car she kept telling me about all the good things that was going to happen while I was in high school. I couldn't really pay attention because I was so nervous. You could see how scared I was on my face. When we first walked in the security guard made me take my belt off and told me to put all my electronic devices in my book bag. And that scared me because I felt like I was going to jail or something. But then they told my mom and I to get my schedule and told me to get to class after. So after I got my schedule I was nervous and about to cry because my mom was going to leave me. My first class was upstairs and I didn't know where to go, but thankfully one of the sophomores told me where it was and I finally found it. When I went into the classroom everyone stared at me and then I became nervous again because I had to introduce myself. I didn't know what to say but when I saw my friend from 8th grade in my class I was so shocked and happy and all my nerves went away.

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JUAN | NEW YORK CITY "When she smiles, I don't know how to explain it, but it's really truthful to me." Today I'm going to talk about my mom and why she is so important to me. She's important to me, not just because she is my mom, but because of what she's done for my life. She's made me the man I am today. She's taught me what's good and what's bad, what to do and what not to do. She puts it in a way that's so different from other people. She's so driven. She taught me to never give up, do what you always want to do, take what you want. She dropped out of school in 3rd grade in the Dominican Republic to help her family. You should see the smile on her face when I say I passed a test, or passed a year. I just can't wait to get into college and graduate just to make her so happy, just to see that big smile. It's really bright, her smile. When she smiles, I don't know how to explain it, but it's really truthful to me. I don't like to talk about this a lot because I think it's kind of private so I keep it to myself.

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